


learn to fly

by mellodramatica



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Budding Love, College AU, Engineering student Anakin, F/M, It's Not Much But It's Honest Work, country girl padme, there's a kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27521527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellodramatica/pseuds/mellodramatica
Summary: Anakin Skywalker, student of engineering, tells his almost-girlfriend Padmé about the strange dream he had of a galaxy far, far away...
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, anidala - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	learn to fly

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this from midnight to 6AM on a week day, so if you think it's a struggle you will simply have to forgive me. I needed it out of my system.

Anakin Skywalker’s hands are always busy.

In the mornings they’re often occupied with cheap coffee from one of the machines scattered across campus, thumb and index finger curled just below the rim in order to not get burnt through the thin paper cup. During his lectures they’re tightly clasped around one of his mechanical pencils, making notes in rather illegible scrawls despite the fact they would rather be taking the pencil apart and putting it back together again. In the afternoons, when his schedule is filled with either laboratory work or self-study, they’re particularly active: typing away on one of the clunky keyboards of the university library’s computers, twisting screws and testing switches or rubbing his temples in an effort to ward off the dull headaches eight long hours of thinking thinking  _ thinking _ tend to cause. Those are worth it, though, when at the end of the day he looks down at his work and thinks that he might be one step closer to making his dreams come true.

Most of them, anyway.

Today, Anakin’s hands are engrossed in the act of digging through the scrap metal pile behind the Naberrie family’s farm, just a couple of miles out of town. Back when he was a freshman, he’d found this place as a last resort; it was the best way to get cheap parts, and he definitely wasn’t rich. Nowadays it’s no longer necessity but affection that brings him here. The daughter of the Naberries, Padmé, is seated behind him, overseeing his work from atop one of her father’s diggers as her fingers pluck absentmindedly at a crack in the leather of the seat. 

Anakin isn’t sure what they are. They’ve never discussed it; from words alone, you’d think they were just good friends. The fact of the matter, though, is that none of the girls or boys in any of his classes capture his interest the way she does— and if he were perfectly honest with himself, he’d think that it’s the same for her. They’ve come close to kissing once or twice, when she told him to come sit with her in one of the farming vehicles. Because of the rain, the first time. 

In many of his dreams he’s completed those kisses, his dream-self daring enough to bridge the gap between their lips. He tells himself he will be brave enough to do it the very next time the chance occurs, and wonders when that’ll be. Most of his dreams about her are far too specific to tell her about, though; he’d give himself away immediately. So he keeps them to himself, the only indicator of their existence the charged threads of longing that crawl up his chest and arms whenever he thinks of them a little too much or looks at her lips for a little too long. 

There’s a different kind of dream on his mind as he pulls scrap after scrap from the pile, sometimes checking the list he’s laid out before him. He needs some electrical components, too; he’ll have to go inside for those. Later. Right now, he’s overcome with anticipatory nerves much like the ones he feels when he’s about to raise his hand in class. This dream is one he wants to tell her about so bad— it’s too detailed, too epic, almost too strange to be true. He still vividly recalls the sense of loss and disorientation he felt when he woke up from it, despite the fact such a large part of it was more of a nightmare than a dream. The only thing holding him back from telling Padmé right now is the fact that as ever in his dreams, him and her were together. He doesn’t yet know how he’s going to tell that part, is thinking very hard—

“Is something the matter?” Padmé breaks the silence, ever so observant. It hasn’t slipped past her that he’s hardly paid attention to any of the parts that have passed through his grasp, despite the fact she’s pretty certain at least one or two would be useful to him. 

It takes him a few seconds longer than necessary to respond. “Yeah. A dream,” he eventually confesses, letting his hands drop to the floor to pick up a stray piece of straw. “Have you ever had.. You know? One of those dreams that seem to last years, and they’re so detailed that it seems almost impossible for it to have been a dream?” He’s looking up at her now, gauging her every response.

“Ohh! Yeah,” she’s smiling, nodding to confirm. “Once, a few years ago. They really stick with you, huh?”

A light chuckle, in part still caused by his nerves. “They sure do. I still can’t believe it.”

Padmé pats the space next to her on the seat. It’s tight, but they know they fit. “Come. Tell me everything.”

She doesn’t have to tell him twice. Hopping up from the concrete, he quickly bounds around the digger and climbs into the seat at the other side, resting one hand on his thigh and the other on the steering wheel. They’re close again, more so than they’ve been in quite a while, their hips and thighs pressed snugly together. It doesn’t mean anything. Friends would do the same. After quickly deciding on where to start, Anakin launches into his tale.

It begins on a world of sand, and just like in real life, he only has his mother there with him— he has no father, he is told. He’s still young at this point, only a child, yet despite being a slave, he has managed to begin doing what his conscious self loves most; designing, building, taking things apart only to put them back together in a more useful fashion. He tells Padmé about the droid, programmed to know over six million forms of communication, and her jaw drops at the fact so many even existed in this dream of his. It makes more sense when he explains that the story spreads out across an entire galaxy, and it makes them both smile; what a fitting dream for a boy who hopes to work for NASA one day.

His smile grows wider as he tells her about the mysterious queen who comes to visit his desert planet— herself, he admits after a moment of hesitance, dressed in an otherworldly yet beautiful fashion. How he wins for her, and how a strange wielder of magical powers —a Jedi, he calls him— tells him that he could become just like him, if he wants. The smile fades a little when he reaches the point where he leaves his mother behind, though this he still tells Padmé. He tells her about his training, about learning to use a strange weapon that resembles a laser and about moving things at will, without touch. He tells her about the joys of flying, and how determined it has made him to fly for real one day. He tells her how they meet again a long while later, when they’re both much older. His voice fails him when he reaches the part where he falls head over heels for her, but he isn’t sure it’s not already obvious to her from the way he described her before. He quickly continues with the wars, the hum and buzz of the laser weapons and the pew-pew of the guns. He leaves out everything bad that happens to her, doesn’t want to worry her with it despite it being only a dream. There’s a sharp pang when he recalls how he was telling her about his dreams in this story, too, and his fingers tighten around the steering wheel when he remembers how those played out.

What he doesn’t tell her is that he turns out to be the villain of the story, right up until their son redeems him. He doesn’t tell her that she dies in this dream, nor that it’s his fault. Doesn’t tell her about the fight or the flames or the feeling of a thousand pins and needles in his skin, his lungs, his phantom limbs, for years and years, still never worse than the pain of losing her. He doesn’t tell her about all the lives his subconscious self ruined and ended, can’t bear to think of her face contorting in horror upon hearing all of that. Instead, he tells her more about the flying, about the sunny, green landscape of her home planet, about the mentor he learned so much from. The story is incomplete, and when Anakin runs out, he announces with a sheepish smile that he doesn’t remember much more. Padmé, though not easily fooled, makes peace with this explanation: if he doesn’t want to tell her more, she can respect that. Dreams can be strange and embarrassing things, after all. 

There is, however, one thing she won’t let slip so easily.

“So what you’re saying,” she begins —when did she get so close?— “is that you had a very, very long dream about me.”

The tendrils of heat immediately lashing at his insides are just as uncomfortable as they are drug-like; a physical response that sets his nerves on end. It’s dizzying, delicious in its wooziness, causing him to lean just a fraction closer in turn. This is it— this is where he either gives himself away or tries to prolong his pretense somehow.

Well, if his words don’t end up betraying him, his eyes probably already have.

“I guess my brain couldn’t think of anyone better to make a queen,” he mutters, reveling in even just the warmth of her shoulder against his own. Wonders a fraction of a second too late whether his words can be negatively interpreted.

“Good, then,” she responds, her fingertips meeting his on the steering wheel. “I don’t think I would’ve wanted anyone else to be.”

He remembers his promise to himself, then, and it’s as if he’s already done it a million times, because he has— and she’s right there with him, those soft lips he knew so well in his dream meeting him halfway. The sense of déjà vu nearly knocks him off his feet, but it’s positive, a warm familiarity that he doesn’t think to question, and as he sinks into the kiss, drowning in the warmth of her love and the sweetness of her scent, he counts his lucky stars that this reality is his.


End file.
